The present invention relates generally to wireless computer networking techniques. More particularly, the invention provides methods and systems for restricting undesirable wireless activity in local area networks with wireless extensions. These methods and systems can be applied to many computer networking environments, e.g. environments based upon the IEEE 802.11 family of standards (WiFi) and others that use shared transmission medium.
Computer systems have proliferated from academic and specialized science applications to day-to-day business, commerce, information distribution and home applications. Such systems can include personal computers (PCs) to large mainframe and server class computers. Powerful mainframe and server class computers run specialized applications for banks, small and large companies, e-commerce vendors, and governments. Personal computers can be found in many offices, homes, and even local coffee shops.
The computer systems located within a specific local geographic region (e.g. an office, building floor, building, home, or any other defined indoor and/or outdoor geographic region) are typically interconnected using a Local Area Network (LAN) (e.g. the Ethernet). The LANs, in turn, can be interconnected with each other using a Wide Area Network (WAN) (e.g. the Internet). A conventional LAN can be deployed using an Ethernet-based infrastructure comprising cables, hubs switches, and other elements.
Connection ports (e.g. Ethernet ports) can be used to couple multiple computer systems to the LAN. For example, a user can connect to the LAN by physically attaching a computing device (e.g. a laptop, desktop, or handheld computer) to one of the connection ports using physical wires or cables. Other types of computer systems, such as database computers, server computers, routers, and Internet gateways, can be connected to the LAN in a similar manner. Once physically connected to the LAN, a variety of services can be accessed (e.g. file transfer, remote login, email, WWW, database access, and voice over IP).
Using recent (and increasingly popular) wireless technologies, users can now be wirelessly connected to the computer network. Thus, wireless communication can provide wireless access to a LAN in the office, home, public hot-spot, and other geographical locations. The IEEE 802.11 family of standards (also called Wireless Local Area Network, WLAN or WiFi) is a common standard for such wireless communication. In WiFi, the 802.11b standard provides for wireless connectivity at speeds up to 11 Mbps in the 2.4 GHz radio frequency spectrum; the 802.11g standard provides for even faster connectivity at about 54 Mbps in the 2.4 GHz radio frequency spectrum; and the 802.1a standard provides for wireless connectivity at speeds up to 54 Mbps in the 5 GHz radio frequency spectrum.
Advantageously, WiFi can facilitate a quick and effective way of providing a wireless extension to an existing LAN. To provide this wireless extension, one or more WiFi access points (APs) can connect to the connection ports either directly or through intermediate equipment, such as WiFi switch. After an AP is connected to a connection port, a user can access the LAN using a device (called a station) equipped with WiFi radio. The station can wirelessly communicate with the AP.
Wireless networks use radio signals for information transfer. The wireless medium is a shared transmission medium among multiple wireless devices in the network. The standards such as IEEE 802.11 MAC (Medium Access Control) provide protocol for arbitrating the use of shared wireless transmission medium among multiple wireless devices. Wireless networks have been highly successful.
A number of times undesirable wireless devices, however, can be present in the wireless networks (e.g. unwittingly, maliciously etc.). The wireless activity from the undesirable devices can have adverse impact on the operation of wireless network. For example, malicious wireless devices can launch denial of service (DOS) attack on the wireless network. The DOS attack is aimed at disrupting the wireless communication of authorized devices in the network. Since the radio signals can penetrate the physical structures such as the walls of a building, DOS attack can be launched from neighboring premises, streets, parking lot etc. Another example of undesirable devices is mis-configured wireless devices. Such devices can disrupt the wireless communication of other authorized devices in the network. These and other limitations are described throughout the present specification and more particularly below.
As the popularity of wireless networks grows and certain important computer applications begin to ride on wireless networks, disruption to wireless networks from undesirable devices is unacceptable. Therefore, a need arises for improving the security for wireless LAN environments.